Ruby on Rails is a popular web development framework that is widely used by developers globally. You can use scalable and enterprise-ready applications using this powerful and relatively easy web development framework.
However, if you’re a beginner Ruby on Rails app developer, there are a few common mistakes to be aware of. Let’s dig right in to see what they are and how you can fix them:
1) Identifying and addressing the N+1 query problem
The N+1 query problem can be described as an inefficient way to query data from a database that results in an excessive number of individual SQL queries being executed at runtime. While such a mistake may not get noticed during development, it may cripple your application’s performance in the production environment.
The N+1 problem is caused due to the lazy-loading of records from the database by the Object Relational Mapper (ORM). To address this problem, the first step is to pinpoint n+1 queries and then request the ORM to use eager-loading of records from the database.
Eager-loading will result in a much lesser number of SQL queries being generated instead of the earlier large amount of queries.
2) Not following the proper naming convention
If you’re a new developer and just starting to develop Rails projects, there are a few things you should keep in mind to help you avoid issues in the future. One of the most basic mistakes you need to avoid in your development journey is not following the proper naming convention.
The first step to get around this is to go through one of these great resources for aspiring software developers so that you can learn the basics. Secondly, here are a few tips when it comes to naming conventions in Ruby:
– Always use a singular model name.
– Don’t use reserved names for your class. For example, you may use “Klass” instead of “Class,” the latter being a reserved name.
– Ensure that all available database tables are in a plural format as that helps in mapping your model and table automatically
– Avoid complexity by always following the default restful routes.
3) Tending to use too many gems
Both Ruby and Rails are supported by a powerful ecosystem of RubyGems that provides developers with just about any capability they can think of. While this is an excellent resource to build a complex application quickly, it can result in many bloated applications due to an excessive number of gems in the Gemfile of the applications.
The excessive usage of gems may make a Rails process’ size larger than needed. As a result, the application performance may slow down in the production environment, and there may be other runtime problems too. As a Ruby developer, you should think very carefully before adding each gem to your code.
4) Not using the default automated test capabilities of Ruby and Rails
Both Ruby and Rails provide developers with default automated test capabilities. Experienced Rails developers may write sophisticated tests in the TDD and BDD styles or use even more powerful testing frameworks with the help of gems such as “cucumber” and “rspec.” Adding automated testing to a Rails application is very simple.
Unfortunately, novice developers tend to miss out on writing tests for the projects they work on. Keep in mind that there should be some automated testing for every Rails application. At the bare minimum, you should write at least one high-level integration test for each action in your controllers.
In Summary
Rails is an extremely powerful framework that makes it easy for developers to build a robust web application while hiding much of the details necessary to build it. Even though Rails web application development is much faster as a direct result, novice developers should pay close attention to the common mistakes we’ve highlighted in this article. Doing so will ensure that their code will be clean and the resultant application will run efficiently.
